The Bow
Via my old friend Scott Eric Kaufman I learned that President Obama’s visit to Japan was drawing criticism from the American right (I also learned that Pr...
Author: Jonathan Dresner
Lines which make me less likely to adopt a world history textbook
So, I got a new one in the mail, and I start scanning through, with the usual particular attention to the Japan material, and right there in the “Cultural...
Japan’s Imperial Universities Today
The last time I looked at Japanese universities in a global ranking, I commented that most of the universities on this list were the product of the US Occupatio...
Mystery Circles on Early Armor
What is that circular disk which early medieval samurai wear over their swords? Is it a weight, to keep it from flopping around while horseriding? That’s ...
PRC National Anthem
In honor of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on October 1st, my friend Carsey Yee has sent another video: The Two Chinese...
Hiroshima +50 (and +40)
I haven’t participated in that many “historic” events, but I’m now old enough that my early pictures qualify as historic documents, at l...
Hirohito’s last birthday
I’m almost done, I suppose, with the first phase of my image digitization and pedagogy project, namely scanning a significant chunk of my Japan slides and...
HNN, NYT Post Competing Japan Election Analysis
HNN has posted an extended version of the Soft and Fuzzy history I posted a few days ago. What I’ve added, for the general readership, is more background ...
World War Wannabee: Russo-Japanese War?
Brett Holman notes a new contender in the “really First World War” sweepstakes — the Seven Years War and Napoleonic Wars being leading early c...
Soft and Fuzzy Historic Events
Last time I lived in Japan, the LDP lost control of the Diet, and for a year and a half there was a Socialist Prime Minister in charge of an implausible coaliti...
Once more, dear friends, into the breach….
In my first post here I said that I was going to be teaching a Korean history course for the first time: I lied. Or rather, I was scheduled to teach it, but the...
Academia/bibliography/Current/Recent Events/Economic/General/globalization/Historiography/Japan/Nationalism/Pedagogy/Teaching
Adjusting to the new narrative
My China-side colleague, Alan Baumler, noted that China seems to have supplanted Japan as the go-to model for economic development. This has, he says, required ...
Reflecting on “Giants”
Todd Crowell reports that Kim Dae Jung is seriously ill and reflects on his life and career as a “Giant of [Asian] Democracy” For Kim achieving the ...
Cultural and Physical History Mystery
Michelle Damian, who I met at ASPAC, has a new post up in her project journal with an intriguing mystery: One type of vessel that has intrigued me is the massiv...
Imperial Visits and Attitudes
I just learned of the Japanese Emperor and Empress’ visit to Hawai’i [via]. It’s not the first time that a member of the Japanese Imperial fam...